Resource Recovery and Reuse (RRR)

An SDC funded collaborative project between International Water Management Institute (IWMI), World Health Organization (WHO), Swiss Tropical and Public Health Institute (Swiss TPH), International Centre for Water Management Services (Cewas) and Sandec aims to identify and scale-up promising business models for safe resource recovery from liquid and solid waste in Africa, Asia and Latin America.

Context:

The recovery of water, nutrients and energy is a very high priority, as half the world’s population is predicted to live in water stressed areas by 2025, and agricultural resources are also being depleted. In addition, adequate management of liquid and solid wastes in urban and peri-urban areas of low- and middle-income countries is frequently inadequate, leading to untreated disposal, and subsequent human and environmental health risks. The emerging sanitation-oriented private sector is creating innovative reuse oriented business models, examples of resource recovery include biogas production, aquaculture, urine markets, compost-blending and sludge fertilization. Identifying promising business cases and assessing their feasibility in a large scale scenario holds a potential to scale-up the productive use of waste resources, and provide for improved human and environmental health.

Overall Goal and Objectives:

The overall goal is to implement large-scale resource recovery models from liquid and solid waste streams to promote food security, cost recovery in the sanitation sector, and livelihood opportunities, while safeguarding human and environment health in urban and peri-urban areas of low- and middle-income countries.

This translates into the following two key objectives:

1. To increase the scale and viability of productive reuse of water, nutrients, organic matter and energy from domestic and agro-industrial waste streams through the analysis, promotion and implementation of economically viable business models
2. To safeguard public health in the context of rapidly expanding use of wastewater, excreta and greywater in agriculture and aquaculture and protect vulnerable groups from specific health risks associated with this pattern of agricultural development

Outputs by 2015:

• Catalogue of business models for safe resource recovery and reuse
• A Sanitation Safety Plan (SSP) manual to operationalise the WHO Guideline for Safe Use of Wastewater, Excreta and Greywater (2006)
• Educational and training materials on RR&R business models and SSPs

Funding: